


spiral of lies

by huphilpuffs



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2009, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, M/M, With A Twist, halloween gathering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-18 03:17:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15476484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/huphilpuffs/pseuds/huphilpuffs
Summary: In which Dan probably should have just told his mum the truth instead of telling her he's fake dating his own boyfriend.





	spiral of lies

**Author's Note:**

> Subverted trope: fake relationship

“Daniel?”

He freezes, towel drawn halfway around his waist and hair falling in wet curls over his forehead. “Yes, mum?”

“Can you come here?” she calls. His heart lurches. She sounds like she’s just down the hall, suspiciously close to the bedroom that he left _closed_ before taking his shower.

Not that mums usually care about doors being closed.

“Can I get dressed first?” he yells back.

“Of course,” she says. He can hear the eye roll in her voice.

So he rushes to rub some of the moisture from his hair, and trips over his pyjamas as he fumbles to pull them up over his legs. He’s still drawing his shirt over his head when he walks into his bedroom,, only to freeze halfway through the door.

His mum’s sitting on his bed, duster in one hand, and the other resting on his laptop.

His _open_ laptop.

“Mum?” he says. It sounds a little too much like a squeak.

She looks up, a frown drawing at the corners of her mouth. “Daniel,” she says again,  and he has to fight a shudder. She doesn’t usually use his full name, not anymore. “Want to tell me what these, um, Twitter conversations mean.”

Oh _god._

“I haven’t read them yet,” he mumbles.

“Oh,” says his mum. “Well, a boy named Charlie wants you to remember to make your _boyfriend_ socialize at the gathering this weekend.”

Oh fucking god.

“That’s funny,” Dan chokes, silently cursing Charlie. Who doesn’t even _know_ that Dan has a boyfriend. But of course he had to say it. Dan’s going to murder him at the Halloween gathering.

His mum looks up at him, and Dan almost rushes into the room to slam his stupid laptop closed.

“So, who’s your boyfriend?” she asks, but she’s smiling like she knows. “Is it Phil?”

_Shit._

“I don’t have a boyfriend,” he says. And he almost explains to his mum that Charlie was only teasing, commenting on the perhaps slightly romantic things they’ve done publicly, because he _was,_ but his mouth clamps shut before he can. Knowing her, she’d probably think Charlie was bullying him or something.

Which leads him to blurt out the most stupid thing he’s probably ever said.

“Phil and I are just _pretending_ to be dating.”

\---

His mum stares at him for a long time.

Like, a really, _really_ long time.

So long that Dan ends up walking into his bedroom and sitting down on the bed across from her. He just barely manages to quell the urge to close his laptop. That probably wouldn’t help his case.

“Faking?” she says eventually.

He nods.

“Why?”

“Um.” He swallows, staring at his pyjama bottoms. “To appeal to Phil’s audience?”

When he looks up, his mum’s frowning even more.

“People like that shit, uh, stuff,” he adds, really wishing he could curl up into a ball and disappear.

His mum glances at his computer, then back at him. “That sounds rather manipulative.”

_Fuck._

“It was my idea,” says Dan. “I mean, Phil’s very nice and not manipulative, but I thought it, uh, might help him out, you know?”

He frown deepens even more, until it’s pinching between her brows and Dan’s heart is racing. He needs her to like Phil. And he needs her to believe him.

“But also because he thought it might help me fit in,” he blurts, realizing only after he’s said it that he’s probably digging himself a deeper hole. Something about spiraling lies rings distantly at the edges of his mind, but he just straightens his spine and forces his most certain-looking smile.

It feels rather shaky.

“How so?” she asks.

He curls his hands into fists around his duvet to keep from fidgeting more. “These, uh, friends we’re going to see, they know Phil a lot more than they know me, right?” he says. “He, um, thought they might be more receptive to me if they thought I was his boyfriend. I mean. Instead of just a stranger.”

“Oh,” says his mum. She nods like he just told her he believes the earth is flat, stands, and walks away.

Her duster stays on his bed.

Dan sinks back against his pillows with a sigh that might be a little more dramatic than necessary.

\---

The next day his mum comes back into his room and closes the door behind her.

Dan makes sure he actually closes his damn laptop this time.

“Hello?” he says.

She quirks a half-smile and says: “You know it would be okay if you were gay, right?”

Dan _chokes._ His heart seems to lodge itself in his throat, and he has to sit up to start breathing properly again. His mum stays standing at the foot of his bed, and he would quip about needing some help, except she just said … _that._

It’s the first time she’s acknowledged it. The first time she’s spoken the questions he’s pretty sure have been swirling in the silence between them since he broke up with his girlfriend and promptly took a train to visit a boy in another city.

Which, okay, makes sense, but she’s not supposed to talk about it.

But now that she is–

Dan almost considers being honest, telling her that, okay, he’s not gay but he does like boys and he hopes she’ll be supportive. He never really doubted that she would be. Of all the turns his life has taken recently, liking boys is perhaps the one she’d understand the most.

He almost tells her.

What he actually says is: “I’m not gay.”

It isn’t technically a lie, he supposes. Though lying to his mum hasn’t exactly been outside the realm of possibility lately.

Not technically lying will probably help when she does find out about his not-straightness, though.

She steps closer, until her legs are pressed to the edge of his bed. “Dan–”

“Really, mum,” he says, really not wanting a speech about how he can be honest with her, about how she’ll love him anyway. Not right now. “I’d tell you, right?”

He watches her frown, probably because she knows he wouldn’t. Dan hasn’t been particularly great at telling her things lately, a record which he seems to be very intent on keeping.

But she nods anyway, offering him a smile. “Okay then,” she says. “Have fun at the gathering with your _boyfriend._ ”

The joke doesn’t land, not entirely, but Dan laughs anyway.

\---

“Phil can still spend the night after the gathering, right?”

He doesn’t ask until he’s about to leave, just in case she says no. This way, he reasons, he can tell her that Phil doesn’t have any other accommodations and can’t make any at the last minute, boyfriend or not.

It’s the whole reason he lied in the first place, just so he could spend the night with his boyfriend.

Dan’s dad is sitting at the kitchen table then, and his mum must not have told him what happened, because he asks: “Why wouldn’t he be able to.”

His mum waves the question away. “Of course,” she says. “Your friends are always welcome.”

\---

He probably drinks more than he should.

The night’s faded into darkness and he’s a little tipsy, happiness buzzing under his skin. He’s made new friends who all understand the somewhat strange love of YouTube, and they’ve given him tips for future videos that he makes a mental note of somewhere passed the haze of alcohol.

And Phil’s there, which is the best of all.

Dan’s arm is wrapped around his waist and Phil’s pressed against his side, head dipped so his cat ears tickle under Dan’s chin. Like this, Dan can turn his head and press a kiss to the top of Phil’s while whispering something stupid and no one else needs to know.

Things like: “Why does nobody else eat?”

Phil laughs, pressing his face against Dan’s chest, and his heart goes fuzzy and warm. “You’re right,” he says. “We should get food.”

They make their way through the crowd, pressed together. Dan thinks he sees Charlie grin at him from over a girl’s head, but he’s decided that murdering him can wait until spending time isn’t the alternative, so he looks away. Phil’s hand has drifted down his now, tangling their fingers together.

Dan thinks, not for the first time, that he never wants to let go.

They don’t end up getting food, because alcohol buzzed brains are easily distracted and something about sitting on the edge of a fountain seems appealing. It is, it turns out. Because Phil presses himself against Dan’s side and holds onto his hand tight and points up at the stars.

And they kiss.

Kissing Phil is one of the only things worth giving up food.

\---

They’re on the train back to Wokingham when Dan remembers.

“My mum thinks we’re fake dating,” he says, a little too loud for the almost empty late-night train.

Phil giggles, a little drunk and still leaning against Dan’s side. “You told her?”

“No,” says Dan. “I told her we’re _fake_ dating. We’re real dating, Phil.”

“Really real dating,” says Phil, laughing again. “Why did you tell her we’re fake dating?”

Dan shrugs. There’s a reason there, but he doesn’t care to think about it now. It doesn’t even make sense to his brain right now, a little sleepy and a little buzzed and not at all focused on his mum, of all people.

Although, in retrospect, he’s not entirely sure it ever did make sense.

“Long story,” he says. “I’ll tell you later.”

Phil giggles again, his tongue poking out from between his teeth, and stops thinking about his mum because kissing Phil is far more important.

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi on tumblr [@huphilpuffs!](huphilpuffs.tumblr.com)


End file.
